


The Things We Know

by daisyqiaolianmay (skinman)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Tumblr Prompt, being all cryptic, references to their past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 05:19:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5193704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skinman/pseuds/daisyqiaolianmay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Prompt: "How about when May finds out that Phil slept with Rosalind."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things We Know

Phil huffed, refusing to look at her lest he give himself away.

Melinda had always been able to read him like a book. She knew the cracks in it’s spine like she knew the lines on her own hands. She knew which pages had their corners folded over, and why. She knew what leaves he’d tried to tear out. She knew which chapters he preferred to skip over.

And he knew hers… he knew her worried corners and dented sides. He’d been there.

Shiny, fresh-faced, leather-bound cadets with only one stripe on their dark uniforms. Jogging through mist on Sunday mornings; not much more than children, blind to the rising sun breaking through the fog. Hands gripping each other till knuckles turned white; aeroplane jumps and leaps of faith. Warm, contraband cookies in the winter, huddled around a clunky old heater with kids who’d turned out to be traitors, who’d left, sometimes with an ‘I’m not cut out for this,’ and a duffle in their hand, and sometimes in a dense, black body bag.

Years fighting, protecting as he’d sworn to do, with her at his back, protecting him, protecting her. The day that Chitauri sceptre had ruptured his aorta, a ragged wound marring his back, he’d wondered, in delirium, ‘How’d he get past May?’

To think that could have been his last thought. There were far, far worse last thoughts to have, he supposed, than wondering where Melinda May was. To have her face in his mind’s eye as the world went black for the last time wouldn’t be so bad.

As her analytical, sensitive gaze swept over him he could tell she already knew. She sized him up the same way she might size up a warzone; an acknowledgement of all the hurt that had been caused in her eyes.

“You’re wearing a tie.” The sentence was factual.

His molars ground in conscious anxiety as he finally found her eyes with his own. Knowing as soon as their gazes met that she knew. She knew him, and Melinda May was the one person in the world Phil Coulson could never keep a secret from for long. He’d got better, as the years progressed, but there was something indescribable in his eyes that she locked onto before he could hide it. It became even harder when it came to affairs of the heart, when it was personal.

A few years ago when they’d ran into each other at the Triskelion, it’d been nine months since their last face-to-face meeting, but after a few minutes May had asked, ‘So… who is she?’ with a slightly pained yet genuine smile. There were only a very select few of S.H.I.E.L.D’s agents Coulson had found worthy of explaining the situation when it came to Audrey Nathan. May would always make the cut when it came to the people he could share everything with. Sometimes, more often than he might like, she was the only person on the list.  

“Missed it.” Phil supplied as his only answer, tucking his hands behind his back, folded as he stood in the Hangar, watching crates of provisions being unloaded from a cargo plane. He found security in the everyday parts of his organisation.

“Or maybe you’re just hanging onto the past.” May’s voice might sound flat to any who didn’t know her better, but Phil did, and he could make out that cold, dangerous edge. A warning, the knowing tone of one who knew better.

“You think I should take it off?”

“I think you’re capable of making your own decisions.” She kept her eyes ahead now, hiding the shudder that trickled down her spine. They definitely weren’t talking about the tie now.

“I know what I’m doing.” The director reassured her, fighting the urge to grab her shoulder, her hand, to force her to face him. He wanted to apologise, to scream it out. He didn’t owe her anything, not when it came to things like this, but somehow he felt like a traitor.

“I trust you.” Her words were solid with an assured kind of truthfulness. One cultivated over years of being that presence at each other’s side. One he’d been so nearly lost without. She made to walk away from him as the door of the cargo plane slid home with an echoing ‘Clunk’, but the sound didn’t distract either party from their awareness of the other. She got a yard or two before she stopped short, glancing back, breathing slightly heavier, eyes a little wider. She returned to him, not quite meeting his eyes as she slid a hand down his arm, curling her fingers round his cold wrist, a fleshless hand underneath her fingertips.

He couldn’t feel her, not the way he could before, her skin felt different... and it hurt. He longed to feel the heat of her hand in his, like it had been before, when they were just kids on one of those early assignments, struggling... fighting to stay together, hand in hand, but that opportunity had been stolen from him. She was reminding him of what had already been lost. What was at stake. And it wasn't just another lost limb, it was something much less tangible.

“Phil,” She blinked rapidly, looking from his prosthetic up into his face, “Just, promise me, next time she goes to tie something around your neck… you'll double check that it’s not a noose.” Her face was so full of pure, unguarded terror for his well-being he had to avert his eyes.

He watched as his good, right hand left his side and made it’s way to the point where her neck met her shoulder. A warm pulse under the very human pad of his thumb. She was back, and even after everything that had happened she was alive, and, somehow, more like the Melinda May from his youth than he remembered her being 6 months ago. The same but even stronger, even more powerful. He nodded, “I promise you.”


End file.
